I have tried to learn guitar since I was 11, I am now in my 60’s. I played in a couple of amateur bands in the late 70’s in SE London, mainly rhythm guitar. I stopped after a couple of years when work and married life came along.
I had a mid life crisis in my late 40’s and went back to college to study music and do a BTEC course(Pop/Rock & Jazz). That was a bit of a baptism of fire as I was very rusty, poor rhythm, and little guitar and music knowledge retained. Learning and performing 3 new songs a week was truly daunting, and I suffered from nerves when playing live. I progressed slowly and got to an average level, I was just starting to improvise better and was feeling good. Then near the end of the course I got problems with my left hand, it was thought this was repetitive strain injury from too much guitar practice, it stopped me playing, a very frustrating and depressing time and I stupidly sold all my gear.
18 months later when things got much worse with my left arm it was found that I had a trapped nerve in my neck, which had caused all the issues in the first place, after an operation to fuse two vertebrae and a years recovery the pain was gone. By then I was busy working and did not think about playing guitar again for about 8 more years.
Recently I retired and my wife gave me an acoustic guitar, via a friend, and said why not have another go you have lots of time to get back into it. So now here I am with an Aria Pro II Nashville(Telecaster type) electric, a 30W Kustom amp and a couple of pedals, some music guitar books, my old course notes and luckily for me I found JustinGuitar when an ex work colleague recommended him to me.
I am practising most days and gradually things are coming back, I am enjoying playing again, but I am still struggling with aspects, as I did 10 years ago, mainly rhythm/timing, and syncronisation.
I am hoping to get good enough to play with along with a few like minded local musicians for fun if I can get over my nerves as well.
Welcome Adrian! You can find a lot of resources on the JG website that will help you to practice and build your skills with timing and time-feeling. I wrote something more on your other thread.
It’s great to be picking up a guitar again, even though I struggle with it.
I probably should have said something about musical tastes, it mainly begins in the 60’s, with lots of rock and prog in the 70’s and more recent, good pop/rock from whenever, love Jazz 50’s onward, and the blues feature of course. I am also into some electronic, and can enjoy some classical. I have a reasonable vinyl collection and quite a few CDs, I find streaming useful for new music but not a medium I like to listen with regularly.
Hello Adrian. That is quite the tale of music ups and downs. It’s great that you are now having musical fun again.
Welcome to JustinGuitar and this fantastic community. Please take your time to look around and get to know the wider space. https://community.justinguitar.com/categories
We are a supportive and encouraging group of students and guitarists from across the world. Essentially, we are all here for music and to improve as players. We truly are a ‘community’. Members help and support one another and a friendly, positive attitude underpins this. We hope that all - young or old, experienced or new players - adopt and foster the pay-it-forward ethos that Justin personifies and embedded all those years ago when he started the website and forum.
Also, please make sure to read the community etiquette announcement for some important information and guidance.
